The Hatters hold off the Royals attempt at a reverse sweep as they win 3-2 Sunday afternoon at Curry Arena.
The Hatters would come out like a bolt of lightning on the back of a five-point scoring streak to go up 7-2 in the first set.
Selin Kalkan had back-to-back kills in that scoring run to help Stetson pull away. The Hatters would go on another five-point scoring run later in the set which included two kills from Leilani Vitali to go up 18-9. Stetson would continue building on that early lead and end up winning the first set 25-14.
The second set saw the Hatters struggle a bit more as after going up 3-1 they would eventually find themselves behind 9-12. The Royals and Hatters would trade scoring runs until the two teams were tied at 18. Stetson would then go on a 9-0 scoring run to close out the set 25-18. All the kills on that run were from
Amaris Carter who would end up leading the team with her season high of 22.
Stetson wouldn't fair as well in the third and fourth sets as they would find themselves down early and attempt to climb back and win the sets. However, the Royals would hold them off forcing a fifth set as they would win the third set 21-25 and the fourth set 26-28.
The two teams would trade points early in the fifth set until the Royals would pull away 5-8 which resulted in the two teams switching sides of the court. Coming out of the media timeout the Hatters would go on a four-point scoring run to take the lead, with a kill coming from
Lily Mueller and another two from Carter. Stetson would take the lead 13-11 when
Lauren Vargo would come in to serve. The Hatters would take the last two points with the final kill coming from
Anabelle Standish as they closed out the set 15-11.
Carter added 13 digs to her 22 kills as she earned her third double-double in four matches. Standish and
Nyah Molina also finished with double doubles. Standish tallied 19 kills and 21 digs which are both her season high. Molina totaled 34 assists and 15 digs as its also her third double-double in four games.
Haruka Sugimoto led the team with 23 digs as she could be seen diving all over the court.
The Hatters will travel down to Fort Myers to take on FGCU on Friday October 6 at 7pm.
